A Passionate Expression of Grief
by krook
Summary: She fell in love with poetry in a way she had not before.


A/N: I'd been writing poems. It was one of those weeks.

* * *

There was something phenomenal

About the way he kissed her

The first time

The way goosebumps rose all over her arms

As she wrapped them around his neck

There was something unprecedented about those quiet moments

In the early mornings

Their legs still tangled under white sheets

Before he woke

Before anything

And she watched him in shameless fascination

The straight line of his nose

The faint pink of his lips

Bright against pale skin

There was something other-worldly about the way he woke her

(when he was the one to wake up first)

Kissing her eyelids

With light lips

She could feel his cold fingertips on her cheekbones

Rousing her willing mind

From sleep

From behind a barrier that she had never needed;

Not when it came to him

The way she found out was unjust

(By owl)

Less than a week after he told her

She forgot about the shower she had left running as she read the letter

She collapsed on the ground

Crying

The book he had been reading lay bookmarked on her nightstand

He first read to her in the spring

In a library outside of Solihull

His voice did not waver

His words came out clear

And quiet

She laughed because it was beautiful

When he glared at her there was no heat in his eyes

Her laughter was a sound he wanted to spend an eternity hearing

She watched his lips as he recited verses of Rumi to her

Her frayed red book looked decrepit in his long thin fingers

He turned pages

His every moment seemed like one of the broken verses that he read to her

Fluid and poetic

The sky darkened

His voice grew quieter

"So- I've brought you a mirror,

Look at yourself and remember me."

The closing of a book

The next week they read Rilke

She fell in love with poetry in a way she had not before

He was everywhere

Ubiquitous and inescapable

His clothes in her cupboard

His scent on her sheets

A red toothbrush next to her own

A poem book with words that she could only hear in his voice

And his words

Everywhere she looked

In her books or on her fridge or in her thoughts

She had switched from coffee to tea

There was no more classical music playing in her flat all day

It felt as if

Her world was an ocean

And he was the water

She clung to the pillows one night

Sick of drinking tea

She thought she found traces of him

Thin strands of his memory woven into her pillowcase

Inhale

Inhale

Inhale

And she could almost smell it

Him

Like coffee and soap and paper and ink and sometimes smoke

It made her chest ache

The loss hit anew and suddenly she was drowning in memories, in him

Days bled into months and months bled into winter

The library in Solihull had lost a customer

There was a single moment

When he knew.

She came into the piano room

He had known she was coming

He would recognise

Her footfalls

Anywhere

She came in

Having woken up late

For once.

In his pajamas

Her hair was open

Messy

She was as plain and stunning as ever

Smiling softly

Sleepy eyes shining

Not amber and not hazel or golden or chocolate

Just a brown

Of the warmest sort

And as his fingers moved over the keys

He looked at her

And she sat down next to him and kissed his shoulder.

There was a single moment

And in its happening

He loved her

Come back she said

I'm barely breathing

There was one night in October

A few days before it happened

He woke her

She asked what was wrong

And he kissed her

It was not feverish or fast or wanting

Slower

Heavy and filled with a melancholy need

They tangled themselves in each other

Limbs lacing together

Clumsy hands

Pressing bodies

He would miss her smell

It was cold outside and he was made of heat and life

His inhale was her exhale

In her incoherence

She felt sure that if they stayed like this they could breathe forever.

Just after

The darkness of the night retreated

She asked again what was wrong

He pulled her closer into him by her waist

Burying his nose in her hair

When she turned around

He swallowed his sadness

And pretended to be asleep

One sinks into the other

They breathe each other's air

Feel each other's heart

And it's as if they are all that remains of the world

He was fickle and careless and beautiful

And he was hers

Once she asked him what he thought love meant

He began describing everything she made him feel

He smoked when he was angry

And now she couldn't look at a pack of Camel Lights without thinking of him

Once he came looking for her

They had agreed to meet in the park

Mid March

On a cold year

He headed for the library

She was asleep

Her head on a table in the music section

In front of the Baroque CDs

A copy of something by Vikram Seth in front of her

Headphones in her ears

Dressed in yellow

A simple girlish sundress

And her hair came down her back

Smelling as lovely as ever

He went closer and he could hear the music playing

She looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her

He sat down

Next to her

And watched her breathe,

Her body rising and falling

Everything about her seemed cosmic and incomprehensible and greater than him

When she woke he was still looking at her

And her lips stretched in to a smile

There was something calamitous

About circumstance

She felt as if her world had been ripped out from under her

She was falling - she could feel her stomach drop

Bile rose in her throat

A feeling of dreadful panic

The universe seemed suddenly spiteful

She broke out

Shouting

Curse words and denials and distressed cries of anguish

He held her and kept apologising

I'm sorry I'm sorry I know I'm sorry

The coffee she had made for him spilled and stained the bed sheets.

There was something heart-breaking about his calm as he told her

He spoke flatly

His fear swallowed whole

Replaced with and aching relief that this girl he loved would continue to exist

And a crippling despair that he would not be there to see it.

There was something blue about the way they lay together after the news had sunk in

Her back to his front

His lips on her throat

Dried tears on her cheeks

Fingers woven

Cold air rushing in

Blankets discarded

Gooseflesh everywhere


End file.
